Get into the groove!

It has now been two weeks of school.





How are you feeling, Jamie?





Well, I will tell you. Right... now.





School has been really good. That feeling of being really behind everyone else faded after a couple of days. Of course, there are still a lot of people that are better than me, but I am not the lowest. I feel pretty much the perfect amount prepared. That being said... it's hard! I think one of the most difficult parts is switching from everyday conversation Japanese to formal Japanese. The teachers at the center encourage us to speak in as formal a way as possible in class, which for me is pretty difficult, just because I'm not used to it. I can use slang like no other, but when it comes to using keigo... it's hard for me. That just means that I'll have to work HARDER. It is also a little bit weird to speak with the other students in Japanese still. Mostly because I have to think longer to word things in Japanese, and the kind of humor that I want to use may not translate into Japanese, and so on. But no big.





Other than studying, though, I have been spending a lot of time around the school area, and also around my neighborhood, just getting to know the area. I really like Minato Mirai, where the school is. It reminds me of the Jetsons; all futuristic. Maybe I'm just not used to big buildings. But see for yourself!

Don't you except to see, like, a hovercraft floating by?

This might not be the best picture to describe it, but it really is nice. I've been around town more than this, but I just keep forgetting to take pictures. This weekend my friend JULIE is coming to visit, though, so I will take some pictures while being her tourguide.

I also have gone to a couple of concerts, which I love doing in any country. I went with a friend of mine that I made from YouTube named James to a show in Shibuya the first week of school; it was an all-girl group night, so about four girl bands played their music. It was really great. And there, there was a band from Portland in the audience named Kleveland, and they were paying a show in Yokohama the next week and invited me. So I went to that last night, and they were really fun. Shows in Japan are so funny sometimes; it is either everyone is really jacked up and all dancing and having fun (like most small shows in America), or everyone just stands there... and maybe nod their heads to the beat. I don't really like dancing, so it is totally fine with me, but it is just an interesting difference.

So all in all, I am feeling good. As the title suggests, I am getting into the groove. More pictures later (I know I promised that before but this time really because we finally have internet at our apartment!)

SCHOOL

I am actually still in the building as I write this. I have about another hour to kill before my oral exam.
ANYWAY,
This morning was the first morning of school. I woke up at around seven, but was really tired because I was so nervous about today that I couldn't really sleep. Which is pretty ridiculous. BUT, I got to get up, walk to the store for a calorie mate (which are the best things ever. They are small but have a lot of calories in them so you are supposed to stay full for longer... I think) and some coffee, and got to get ready for the day slowly, which was nice.
About an hour before class started, I got on my bike, turned my iPod to Prince's "Dirty Mind," and headed out. I got to Yokohama station in about twenty minutes, and I thought that I was going to get to school a lot faster than I had planned to...
BUT, the road to get to school really threw me off. I only actually had come to school on my bike once before, and had forgotten how to get here, so I had to do a lot of going back and backtracking. I finally managed to, and with still fifteen minutes to spare.
The first thing we did was to have just a simple orientation: The teachers were introduced and all of us students did little self-introductions...
That is when I realized that everyone here is really, really, really good at Japanese.
There are so many people here who are pursuing their PhD, and so many other people who have lived here for a long time, or for whatever reason are just really really good at Japanese. Which is good to have a big group of students (there are 59 of us) who are all pretty high levels, but it is still very intimidating. Hopefully I will RISE TO THE CHALLENGE or whatever.

The teachers all seem really nice, and today we have an oral interview/test, one on one with the teachers for 15 minutes each. According to Sarah (who did the program a couple of years ago), the little meeting is put on video... here is where my YouTube video making pays off!

Let's hope this goes well. I think I will come to school early tomorrow and try to put up some pictures of the school and stuff on here! Yay!

Talk to you all later!

SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED

About a million things have happened since my last post and so I am going to try and list them all as concisely as I can, or else this post will be pages and pages long.

Since my last post...
I have gotten a bike, which is now my second favorite possession. My iPod is still my favorite thing. BUT ANYWAY, the bike is green, and has a big basket in the front and then a flat thingy at the back, so I can carry SO MUCH. And we rode our way to Yokohama station, and it only takes about 25 minutes to there, and then maybe another ten or fifteen minutes to school, so it`s really convenient. The bike tires got really low on air really quickly, so I took my bike to a gas station on the way home one night. The guy filled up my tires, but I think he may have filled one up too much, and... the tire exploded. The guy yelled in shock, and I yelled in shock. Then he said `I`m really sorry about that and we don`t have bike tire tubes, so here is 2,000 yen... bye`
But now my bike is fixed, so everything is fine. It`s even better than before, if that is even possible because I love it so much.

I am also pretty sure that the cockroaches are all dead. I think that the two that were in there were more of a mistake, or a fluke than an actual infestation. But when we were buying traps and bugbombs and stuff, there were all these signs that said `for every ONE you see... there are FIFTY!` So that was a little bit scary. But we haven`t seen any more since then. And everytime I come home I listen for scurrying of little feet, but I don`t ever see anything or hear anything. Let`s hope it stays that way.
BUT
Yesterday, when I was sitting in my room on my computer, I had all of my windows open, and my light in my room was the only one on. So I am minding my own business, trying to find the elusive wireless signal from somewhere in the neighborhood that we can sometimes get at our house, and notice a couple of little gnat/bug things around. No big deal. So after about an hour, the wireless signal goes away, and I get up to get some water. And when I turned and looked at my bed...
THERE WERE HUNDREDS AND MILLIONS OF GNATS ALL OVER IT.
And on my wall.
And on the light.
So I grabbed the vacuum and started sucking them all up. It was a massacre. Of course, they were still everywhere, but just a lot less of them.
By morning, though, they were all dead. I am hoping that there won`t be any more bug stories to tell. Because they are interesting, but they are not fun to experience. Well... vacuuming up all those gnats was a little bit fun.

I also got to go and visit my friend Julie in Gotemba, where she is an ALT. It was really fun. We went to a picnic with her co-workers at one of the schools where she teaches, and I got to see, in Julie`s words, "people with normal jobs and normal hair." And she was right, in a sense. I guess most of my contact with Japanese people has been with young people, or college age people, and not so much in the professional world. So it was interesting to see. And also to see that, like in every country, grown-ups are just kids with money. And a FEW more things to talk about, although mostly the topics are the same. We did get to play frisbee and catch, both of which were really fun. And in Gotemba, the U.S. army and the Japanese Defense Force or whatever apparently have this, like, joint base, and they were practicing their bombing not too far from where our picnic was. The bombs even shake Julie`s walls in her apartment from the middle of the city. I guess you would get used to it, but it just sounded like really close, loud thunder going no all day.

A lot of time has been spent making the apartment more like a real place to live, and it is finally turning in to one, which is great. There are still some things to be done and things to be bought, but it will all come in good time, I suppose. Also a lot of time has been dedicated to exploring Yokohama and also Mitsuzawa, which is where we live. The road that takes us to the station isn`t a main road, but it has a lot of neat little shops, and of course the Mintao Mirai area (where IUC is) is really beautiful, and right on the bay, and has a ton of cool places to explore.
Today, when I was lost on my bike for a good twenty minutes, I went by this temple. I suppose it was typical of a Japanese Shinto temple, but it was still so beautiful, and there was this great juxtaposition, because it was right across from the train tracks. I didn`t go in, but just seeing it there was nice. I mean, it`s not in my neighborhood, and probably I won`t go back (I had gone about three stations north of Yokohama station, whereas I live west of Yokohama station), but, I guess, seeing that made me realize that there will probably be many more places like that everywhere, and makes me even more excited to walk around my neighborhood more.

Speaking of which, there is a park next to our apartment that I think I will walk through tomorrow. I will bring my digital camera to the internet cafe tomorrow and see if I can`t get some pictures uploaded.

I also spent a nice afternoon biking all around Yokohama and Minato Mirai, and I also got to spend a long time in the stores around that area, which was so relaxing. I have been having so much fun in the preparation period before the IUC program starts, and I hope that the program will be fun, too. I know that it will probably be more challenging than anything I have done so far, but I am really looking forward to it.

Internet in our apartment hasn`t been installed yet, and I heard that it can take quite a while, so I might be coming back here quite often. Which I don`t necessarily mind, I just know that, even in this past week, there are so many things that I have forgotten about putting in this blog, which means that I`ll probably forget about it altogether. I should start writing things down more. ..

anyway, I suppose that that`s all for now. I hope you are all doing well. I know that the new semester just started at UM. I miss doing the Kaiwa Table with the JSA, and all the JSA events. There were really fun. I hope it`s even better this year!